76 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / August 2019- Design for meritocracy and
transparency “To radically
improve the quantity and
diversity of input, design
a more transparent and
meritocratic system.” - Encourage anonymity
“To improve the quality,
diversity and truthfulness of
input, encourage anonymity.” - Have a clear process and
selection criteria “To attract
broader participation, commit
to a process and define the
selection criteria upfront.” - Broaden the scope of
contribution “To attract
broader participation,
encourage ideas that are not
limited to a particular scale
and scope.” - Provide some paid time
to participate “To encourage
higher quality input, provide
paid time for employees to get
involved.”
‘TREP TALK
Swae founder and CEO
Soushiant Zanganehpour
on how entrepreneurs can
execute better decisions at
their enterprisesSTART IT UP Q&A
The Swae teamMIDDLE EASTFOR THE MOST
DARING LEADERS
FOR THE MOST
DARING LEADERS
BNCPUBLISHING.NET
Today, the Swae platform
digitally enables and powers
the Etihad Airway’s Entrepre-
neurship and Employee-Driv-
en Innovation Program, iFikra,
allowing it to function and
scale across the entire work-
force. “Having the convening
power and support of the
NYU startAD program gave us
an initial leg up in brokering
the relationship and getting
to a quick ‘yes/no’ decision
about a possible future,” says
Zanganehpour. “This was
extremely valuable because
getting to a ‘yes/no’ decision
with potential pilot customers
is key for an early stage start-
up with limited resources.
Having an internal champion
that helped clear the way,
protect the idea and fight for
the opportunity, amidst all the
competing internal priorities
has been the game-changer.
Our partnership with Etihad
would not have been pos-
sible without the tireless and
ongoing support and internal
championing of Kai Ling Ting,Senior Manager, and the rest
of her Strategy and Innovation
team at Etihad Airways.”
As an entrepreneur who
is as active in the GCC as in
other parts of the world, Zan-
ganehpour is full of praises for
the region’s intentions to sup-
port innovating and develop-
ing new products and services,
but points out to legacy sys-
tems, cultures, and mindsets
that constrain the existing
potential, and limit the extent
to which the GCC competes
with global standards, when
it comes to customer centric-
ity, cost, long-term thinking,
appreciation of risk, and
innovation tolerance. “The
region is restrictive and very
costly for early-stage startups
and entrepreneurs,” he adds.
“The high costs and short-
term commercial pressures
in turn limits the types of
innovation and ventures that
are pursued. Lastly, there is
a lack of real investment into
startups, because very limited
real funding is provided, andinstead, a lot of attention is
paid to potential POC con-
tracts.”
At this stage, Zanganehpour
and his team are focusing
on building Swae 2.0, which
should be available by Q4
2019, and finalizing the details
of its pricing model which,
he explains, will be based
on a combination of vari-
ables including the numbers
of users, management users,
duration, and of success-
fully graduated decisions. Due
to its many unique details,
Zanganehpour believes that
the Swae platform has, at the
moment at least, only indirect
competitors that provide solu-
tions in the areas of employee
engagement, innovation
management, stakeholder
consultation, crowdsourcing,
participatory budgeting, and
big data decision-support.
But Swae stands out for two
core reasons- the design of
its decision-making workflow
and methodology, and the way
AI is integrated in the process.“We believe AI can be used to
level the playing field, so those
with poorer language skills
who do have valid insights
can also have an equitable
chance at making their ideas
heard for the benefit of the
collective decisions,” says
Zanganehpour. “We therefore
use NLU/NLP algorithms to
help improve the quality of
initial solutions articulated on
the platform, functioning as a
proposal editor, to strengthen
the proposal’s effective-
ness. This process creates
bottom-up solutions that are
well-written, researched, and
deliberated.”